


In which Roman finds his voice

by Writer_47



Series: Nurture [5]
Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:53:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26092174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writer_47/pseuds/Writer_47
Summary: #5) Follows on from 'Yacht', 'In which Gerri thinks about Age', 'In which they Holiday' and 'In which Roman must make a choice'Roman has ended the relationship - how will they both deal with it and move forward?
Relationships: Gerri Kellman/Roman "Romulus" Roy
Series: Nurture [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1883719
Comments: 15
Kudos: 42





	In which Roman finds his voice

For the first few days she feels like a zombie. She functions. She’s there. But there’s this gaping hole in her body, a numbness, as if she’s been frozen and can no longer feel.

She is ashamed.

She hardly moved out of bed on the Sunday. Laid there staring at her ceiling running through a hundred different possibilities. And she hated herself for that. For going over their conversations, or her actions, or their messages and questioning it all. There was no room for reflection or recriminations – she knew from the start it would never last, she just expected there to be a bit of a downturn in events before it finally broke; for things to become a little sour or stale before the final break. Not for it to reach that joyous harmonious moment between them and then just drop out of the sky.

And that text. That fucking text. Was he really such a child that when she’d made that stupid off-the-cuff remark on the beach he took it seriously? Was he so useless at treating other human beings right that even she was worth little more than a thirty second tapped out message?

She already knows the answer to this.

She is foolish.

When Monday rolls around she puts on her façade, and it’s hard to believe as she listens to Jaime in their morning meeting, that only a week earlier she had been discussing their relationship with Cyd.

That’s what she feels so idiotic about.

It perhaps wouldn’t hurt so much if people hadn’t known. If it had just remained between the two of them then it wouldn’t matter so much. And he’d pushed and pushed and pushed for more of her time, more of her attention, for them to make it something real.

“Gerri?” Logan turns his attention to her as the meeting draws to a close.

“Yes?”

“My office in an hour with Karl, we’ll look at the statements again then.”

“Sure.” She stacked her papers together.

“You look tired, you okay?”

“Yes, fine, thanks.”

“Good, good. Got to stay on top of your game.”

He ambles off and it is only then that she sinks into her chair with a heavy realisation, and she can’t believe she hadn’t considered it before. Saturday afternoon Roman was meeting his father. She had been so wrapped up in the excitement and joy of going out with him it had never occurred to her ask how it went.

Logan. That was it.

She sighs heavily, turns her attention to the windows so nobody can see her expression. Perhaps if she’d asked things wouldn’t have gone the way they did. Though there was nothing she could do to change that now and really if he was so fucking weak that he snapped to attention as soon as his father said jump… She brushed her hand through her hair, angry, frustrated.

And that slightly loaded comment about being on top of her game. So that was it, he was watching her, she had no doubt that he’d dig into the slightest chip in her armour and take her down. What she’d done with Roman was somehow a personal attack on him, no consideration for the two people actually involved in it and how they might feel.

She squared her shoulders, shook her mind free of thoughts of the other Roy and focussed on Logan. If he needed her to prove herself then she was just in the right frame of mind to go to war.

*

Now is not the time to be distracted. His father had trusted him to front the DC stuff, and it had been going well – he was actually managing to work with Frank, who in turn was passing on positive feedback to Logan. And now, at that moment when he should have been riding the crest of Kendall’s departure and his rise in the company, he was like some fucking zombieland creature.

His brain wouldn’t focus.

Whenever he stopped and sat and tried to work, she was there. It was like she’d crawled inside his head, wormed her way in to every sinew of his being, and he couldn’t get her out.

Odd times, in the early hours of the morning, he finds himself playing through that night at the theatre, he imagines her reaction when she got the text, he pictures her actions. And the guilt sweeps through him like a sickness. He’s never really known guilt before, not really – he could rip up cheques in front of kids and destroy their dreams or belittle some employee and not feel a fucking thing.

He spends a few months fucking her and what, he’s like some soppy rom-com character who can’t think straight?

Those sleepless nights give him too much time to reflect. He finds himself playing back their times together. Occasionally he reaches for his phone, he can’t bring himself to delete their messages and he scrolls back and reads from the start. Some make him laugh, others make his head hurt and there’s this constant aching in his chest that he can’t bring himself to dwell on.

Fuck his father.

Fuck Waystar.

Other nights he lies there thinking up elaborate plans. Ideas of kidnapping her and secreting her away in his apartment. Or of somehow forming a friendship with her again – he misses the sound of her voice, the way she’d smile at him in that lopsided way when she was half amused and half exasperated by his behaviour. The contact with her. Being able to just text her, call her, and she’d never mind and she’d always listen as if he was important to her. Maybe in time they could be friends again. Maybe then, well there would be a day when his father was no longer in charge, and maybe then he could…

…those plans always meandered and failed in the same way. He wanted her now. Not in two months or two years. He wanted every second with her. And besides, as if she’d ever forgive him. He felt like they’d shared enough about each other over the past six months that he knew her well, and he knew that the things she’d told him were private and sacred, that she would never usually open up to someone in the way she had with him. And so he’d taken that trust and done what Roman Roy always did, fucked it all up.

He’s in a meeting one afternoon, a Friday, late December, and he’s tired and his brain is drifting and he keeps seeing this image of her in blue pyjamas. He can smell her in the air, she’s that close, and her skin is soft and her hair is pinned up and just curling at the edges. That night when he went back to Tabitha and dreamt of Gerri; when he woke confused and ashamed. That night when he’d cleaned himself up in her sink and timidly come out only to find her sitting cross legged on her bed working, her laptop on her knee. And he’d muttered and mumbled something inaudible and she’d glanced up as if it was the most natural, easiest thing in the world and just given him a small smile, “Goodnight then,” just like that, like it didn’t even matter. She never judged him. She never labelled him. She put him at ease.

He missed the crux of the meeting and said something ridiculous, some joke he thought up on the spot, and nobody had raised even a whisper of a smile. Frank had managed it, but he felt like a fool then, like the thousands of times he’d been told he was a moron were coming to fruition. Some fucking self-fulfilling prophecy.

The worse thing was, there was nobody he could tell. He didn’t have close friends; he never had done. He talked to Shiv and Kendall because they were the closest to knowing what it was to be him. And then Gerri, he would have talked to Gerri. He wanted to call her up and describe his symptoms and have her tell him, “Pull yourself together you fucking weakling and get over it.” He couldn’t tell Shiv, he felt like a failure, what less than a month after making a big deal about being with her he’s now no longer with her? And Kendall… his estranged brother hiding out somewhere until crunch time. And so he did what he did with all his feelings, turned it inward, internalised. He’d usually have gone drinking, done some drugs, had some whore jerk him off. But she’d ruined him, sex was something else now, it wasn’t just about getting off, sex was something he did with her.

Christ he missed her.

He kept flicking through the photos in his phone, their vacation, the way she looked in the sunshine with her hat on. A form of self-torture.

Christmas in England was going to be one hell of a long week.

*

“Kid’s distracted,” Frank whispers, half turned toward Logan, half facing the wall. Logan looks out to the room, always his eye on every person there. He misses nothing.

“Oh, really?”

“Was doing great, top of his game, impressed me even, thought we might be getting somewhere. Then boom, like that, last two weeks gone off the boil. He’s tired most of the time.”

“Partying?”

“I don’t think so, I’ve had a few of the lads keep an eye on him, he’s not going out. Hotel room.”

Logan scans the room for his son; it is New Year’s Eve and hectic and loud, Roman would usually be at the heart of that, making some god-awful fool of himself and laughing like a hyena on crack.

“This thing,” Frank starts, “you know, with… did it end?”

Logan shrugged, “How the hell would I know?”

He looks around again, Gerri is across the room and give her her due he’s surprised to see her there, he thought she might have suddenly had other arrangements. But she’s there, in conversation with some twat from the accounts department. He catches her eye, raises his glass to her and she does the same, though he can read that smile, the smile of someone who is seething. It amuses him, he’s never played with Gerri before, not really. She’s always been too good, too useful, but she’s smart and that intrigues him, to see what she could conjure, what she might come at him with. All part of the game.

Bit of a leftfield move though, fucking his son. He can’t figure out what she saw in him; it’s easy to see why Roman would hanker after her – good looking woman, well-spoken, quick-witted, and she had this look about her, the kind of look of a woman who knew what she was fucking doing in the bedroom department. He wouldn’t have minded a taste of that himself maybe once upon a time.

“Take him out,” he says to Frank, still staring at Gerri, “get him drunk, get him laid. Find him some nice young pussy with tits like rocks to take his mind off things. He needs to get his dick wet again and move on.”

Frank nods, following Logan’s gaze to where Gerri stands. She looks good, he can understand why Roman went there. And despite his years of experience he feels for the lad, almost forty and still controlled by his father.

*

“Excuse me for a second would you,” Gerri said, the eyes of Frank and Logan had finally shifted and she took the moment to escape. She drifted into another room, made her way through groups of people and got herself another glass of Champagne. This was possibly going to be the longest New Year she’d ever had and she questioned herself again on why she’d even bothered attending. She could have been sick, a cold, another invite.

Something made her go. Something wouldn’t let go.

“Well, hello dear godmother,” Shiv rested her hand on Gerri’s upper arm, turning her round and kissing her cheeks. “So, you here tonight in the capacity of General Counsel or as the woman who’s fucking my brother?”

“Excuse me?”

“Makes sense though right, I thought it through and it’s a clever move.” There was a hushed sense to her voice, as if she was discussing some conspiracy.

“A-ha,” Gerri sipped her drink, narrow eyes peering at Shiv through her glasses.

“I mean, Dad’s on his way out, in time, aging, whatever. Kendall – he’s no use to you, likely never was, either too high or too immune to whatever the fuck it is you’re offering. But Roman, he’s interesting. Not too smart. Not too dumb. Weird kinda sexual hang-ups.” She shrugged, “Perfect.”

“I think you give your brother far too little credit.”

“Oh really, you think he’s going to win businessman of the year.” She sipped her Champagne. “Good way for you to hang on though, as I say, clever move. I’m impressed.”

For a moment she thinks of bursting into some elaborate explanation of how they’re no longer together. Of how very wrong Shiv has got things. But for some reason she doesn’t; she finds herself defending their now defunct-relationship and her brain is twisting itself over at the ridiculousness of the entire thing.

“If you’re suggesting I’m using Roman to somehow manipulate my way into power you’d be wrong.”

“Oh, you’re telling me you genuinely care for him, that this is some great romance?”

“Is that so hard to believe?” She holds Shiv’s gaze, she can play hardball, she can push back if needed – even when it still hurts.

Shiv opens her mouth, licks her lips and smiles.

“Look, you should give him more credit, he might just make CEO,” she says. “And as for the other thing, you really ought to talk to him.”

“Why? And why aren’t you two, you know, tonight? Perfect opportunity for making a statement.”

Gerri’s eyes glimmer just for a moment, but then she regains her composure. “Talk to him. And then, maybe come and see me, next week when we’re back. I have some things I want to run over with you.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, about Gil. But just keep it between you and I for now, yes.”

*

It takes Shiv most of the night to find Roman, and when she does he is sitting on the balcony freezing and staring into the bottom of a bottle of Whisky.

“What up bro, not in the party mood?”

“Siobhan,” he raised the bottle to her, “come join me in my depths of despair.”

She pulled her jacket around her and perched next to him on the table there, taking the spliff he offered.

“What’s going on?”

“Ah, fucking New Year, you know I hate it. False pretentious bollocks, can’t stand it. Urgh.” He shook his body extravagantly.

“Er yeah, but free booze and lobster on the old man so suck it up, right.”

“Yeah. Right.” He took a long drink from the bottle.

“So, I just saw Gerri.”

He felt his pulse quicken, “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, and she seemed odd, right,” she jerked her thumb over her shoulder towards the party. “Like, really odd. Kept saying I needed to talk to you. Did something happen there?”

“We broke up,” he took another drink, as if burning his throat with the liquor could erase how he felt.

“Shit. Harsh. When?”

“Weeks ago.”

“Oh, shit. Did she…?”

“It was me,” he said quickly, “I ended it.”

Things started to make sense, “Ohh okay, wow, she’s a better woman than me then.”

“How come?” Talking about her somehow made him feel close to her again, like every time someone said her name in a meeting he could conjure her face.

“She just majorly defended you in there to me, like I would’ve been pissing all over your corpse.”

“What she say?”

“Just that she thought you could be CEO one day.”

He felt his chest lift, the slightest smile curl on his lips.

“So how come you ended it?”

He thought of lying, making some cheap joke about her age or sexual appetite. Instead when he stared at Shiv he found he couldn’t lie about Gerri, he would never want to.

“Dad.” He said simply.

“You’re telling me Dad made you break up with her?”

He nodded, “ _You don’t shit where you eat_ , apparently.” He swirled what was left of the whisky in the bottle. “Another thing I’ve fucked up, because I’m disgusting.”

“Christ Rome, I mean, like… does she know, that it was Dad I mean?”

“I doubt it. I texted her.”

“You fucking moron,” she slapped his arm.

“Ow! That was how she told me to do it, no messing about, they were her exact words – when it’s over, say it’s over.”

“Yeah but fuck. Come on.”

He drained the bottle.

“You alright?” Shiv asked softly.

“Yeah, course, look at me. I’m great. Totally fine. A-okay.”

“Yeah,” Shiv got up from the seat. “Then why you sitting out here freezing your bollocks off then?”

*

Just after midnight Gerri figured she could leave. She had done her bit by then and it excused her from any dancing or shenanigans that lasted well into the early hours. She’d ordered a car to be there for 12:15, and she would thank Marcia and quietly slip out.

Only she’d set herself one last task to do before she went and it felt a bit like handing yourself over to be shot. But it had to be done, to close that door. Lock and bolt it.

Roman had been elusive all night, but at one point she’d noted Shiv sneaking in from the balcony and so she headed that way, slipping outside before anyone even registered the move.

She would know his outline anywhere, drooped over on the bench, a bottle on the floor by his feet.

She had wondered how she would feel when she saw him again. The last time they’d been alone was in that theatre foyer and she’d kissed him for everyone to see and been smiling like some foolish old woman, gripping his hand in hers.

Now, it was like looking at a shadow and she was glad she’d had three weeks before seeing him again, facing him.

“Roman,” she said firmly and his head jolted upright, and his body moved as if he was going to try and get up. “Please, don’t move, you don’t look like you could manage it for a start.”

“Gerri…” his voice was slurred.

“Look I don’t want this to be some big thing, I just wanted to give you this back.” She took a small box from her handbag. “You clearly bought this that night we were out, and it was delivered to my apartment on Christmas Eve and well, I just think it’s something you maybe forgot to cancel.”

“I didn’t forget. I wanted you to have it.”

“It’s a ring Roman, a very expensive ring.”

“Yeah, a ring you liked.”

“Still,” she stepped closer to him, putting the box down on the edge of the table. “It’s not appropriate now.”

“Gerri, come on, I got it measured up for you and, for fucks sake, you can keep it.”

“I don’t want it!” she snapped, and then softened her voice, “Thank you.”

She turned, it was done, she could leave. Not look back.

“Gerri,” he called after her, “wait, look.”

She could hear him fumbling about behind her, clumsily, drunkenly, trying to get down from the table. And the thought he might hurt himself made her pause.

“It’s your Christmas present.”

“You have no reason to buy me one. I didn’t you,” she lied – because the truth was she’d been buying him little gifts for weeks before that awful night and they were now hidden away in the back of one of her wardrobes.

“I’m sorry, that we er, you know, that it couldn’t…”

“Yes. I’m sure you are. Thank you for your heartfelt condolences.”

“Gerri…” he touched her elbow and she shook him off, snapping round on her heels. “I’m sorry, _sorry,”_ he held his hands up. “I won’t touch you; I just want to talk; we haven’t seen each other…”

“Small mercies.” She said. “I don’t have time for this Roman, I need to go home.”

“I wanted to say…”

“What?” She shook her head, her voice taking on that steel he’d heard her use over the years when she was berating staff or arguing her corner. “There is nothing you can say, nothing of value. If you’d wanted to play, some entertainment or amusement for a few months then you should have stuck with one of your call girls. Do you even realise how this could damage me? How weak it makes me look in front of a boardroom full of men? I’ve worked for twenty years to be taking seriously, be on an equal footing, and thanks to you now they’ve got a weakness, something to chip away at to take me down. So no, whatever you have to say I don’t really give a fuck Roman. As usual, I’m on my own fighting my own bloody battles.”

The truth was he had never considered that angle, he was so utterly selfish and short-sighted. He wanted to touch her again, pull her closer, smell her, make her laugh.

“So is this how it’s going to be now then,” he suddenly says, his voice harder than she’s used to hearing. “Like, fucking strangers, enemies?”

“How did you honestly expect it to be Roman, we can’t go backwards, pretend none of it happened. Life doesn’t work that way; you can’t just put your toys down when you’re done with them and expect them to be grateful when you want to pick them up again.”

“You said it was casual,” he said, “out there, on the beach, you said keep it casual.”

She is stunned by that, turning by the door to stare at him. “Yes, and that was at the start of the holiday. We had another month together after that night. Are you that fucking messed up that you can’t recognise… that you didn’t see where we were going?” She shrugged, throat tight now, in danger of revealing too much, being too weak. “Maybe it was me who read the situation wrong. I knew from the start it was a colossal fucking mistake to get involved with someone whose personality type is ‘cunt.’ Goodnight, Roman.”

*

Roman has always found something seductive about therapy. It’s not the way it’s meant to be viewed but he grew up in a world where popping a pick-me-up pill was as common as popping a Smartie. Where alcohol was available from around the age of thirteen. Where blow jobs were passed around at teen parties instead of party-bags. So therapy was as common as going to school, in fact he’d probably spent more time in and out of therapists’ offices than classrooms.

He usually moved on from them quickly. But this one, a man – again a new thing for him, he’d always gone to female therapists in the past, he enjoyed how most of them wore those matronly sharp suits with heels – he’d stuck with for over almost twenty months. His name was John Sacher, and Roman amused himself by repeating the word as often as he could in their meetings, mentally forming a tally chart in each session.

“We were starting to get somewhere, Roman,” John said, “last November, we were getting somewhere. Now we’re back to long silences.”

Roman was flopped over the sofa, his head hanging over the side, staring at the carpet. “Yes Sacher, sorry Sacher. You know you’ve got pistachio nut shells on the floor under your desk. You wanna get your fucking cleaner to suck that shit up.”

John sighed, “Roman, concentrate. What’s going on? For a start it’s almost the end of January and this is the first time I’ve seen you in about six weeks.”

“You still get paid, don’t you Sacher, when I cancel?”

“I’d rather get paid for doing my job.”

“Why, I’ve always found life easier when you do fuck all and still have the readies available.”

“But you don’t really believe that.”

“I’ve just fucking said it,” he lifted his head and laid back fully on the couch, banging his feet in turn on the end of it – left, right, left, right.

“You were enjoying your work. You said you’d risen in the ranks, you felt you were getting somewhere, that your father might be proud – that’s important to you, to make him proud.”

“Fuck that cunt.” He barked.

“Alright. Well, what about Gerri, you had mentioned her often in relation to –,”

“I don’t want to talk about her neither.” His voice was softer, and he closed his eyes.

“You want to tell me something.”

“I have nothing of note to report,” Roman said.

“This woman. Gerri, I’m right, aren’t I, you did speak of Gerri?”

“Christ, stop saying her name.” he dug his hand into his hair.

“That bothers you, hearing her name, talking about her?” He paused, waited a few seconds watching Roman’s face. “Don’t block how you feel, tell me, that’s why we’re here.”

“I fucking hate her too.” He said, and then he slammed his body against the couch. “I want to hate her.”

“Okay, okay, tell me why. Did she hurt you?”

He shook his head, “I hurt her.”

John nodded, soothing, gentle. “Why?”

“I hurt her and it hurt me, okay, it fucking hurt me and I can’t get it out of my head. I can’t stop it…” he sucked in air as if he couldn’t breathe. “Dad told me to end it with her.”

“Okay, so this is a woman you were in a relationship with, you cared for?”

He nodded again.

“What about Tabitha?”

Roman looked at him quickly, “She was, she is, a friend, we never… She wasn’t Gerri. She isn’t. I need you to give me something to help me sleep, to get her out of my head.”

“Well, we can discuss that later but first let’s deal with several issues here. One, why can’t you get her out of your head?”

“Guilt. That fucker sucks right, never had that before but Jesus no wonder most of mankind are walking round feeling suicidal most of the time.”

“So you feel guilty because you hurt her?”

He nodded.

“But that’s a normal response.”

“When does it stop? This can’t be forever, I’m gonna fucking throw myself out of Dad’s helicopter if this is forever.”

“Interesting you chose _his_ helicopter.”

“Everything’s interesting to you. You must actually miss the really interesting things in life because a fucking leaf falling from a fucking tree is interesting to you.”

“Why are you angry with me?”

“I’m not,” he pouted. “Dad made me choose, my role in the company or Gerri.”

“I see,” John tapped his pen against his knee. “And you chose your role, that’s nothing to be totally ashamed about, many people choose careers over relationships.”

“I didn’t choose it for the job, the status, all that bollocks. I chose it because…” he breathed deeply, “I chose it because I’m scared of him. Still. My fucking age and scared.” He closed his eyes again. “Is time up?”

“No. Stick with that Roman, explain it to me.”

“I’m meant to be a man, right. I didn’t want him to hurt her, punish her.”

“And would he have?”

“Fuck yes! He always wins, always. Since I was a kid.”

“When you go to see your father, how do you feel?”

“Turned on.”

“Roman.”

He pulled the cushion from beneath his head and put it over his face. “Anxious.” He mumbled into it. “Like I can’t breathe.” When Sacher didn’t respond he pulled the cushion away. “Afraid. Intimidated. I fucking hate myself.”

“Why?”

“Because he controls my life, I’m 38 and yet he controls my life and I’ve let him do it for so long. I love my Dad, yeah, don’t fucking think that I’m some sick bastard who doesn’t.”

“Nobody thinks that.”

“But then why… like sometimes I feel my pulse is so fast on the way to visit him, and she would make me feel…”

“Gerri?” He prompted gently. “What did she do?”

“She made me feel calm. Like I could do it, I could be someone. Not some useless shite on the underscore of humanity.”

“You told me once your Dad hit you, that trip, that convention thing. You laughed it off.”

“A-ha.”

“I got the sense it wasn’t a one-time thing.”

“No comment.”

“Was Gerri ever there, when it happened?”

He nodded.

“How did that make you feel? Were you and she…?”

“What, shagging by then?” He laughed at himself. “No. After that, but we were… there had been some sexual contact.” He settled on. “Phone stuff.”

“Okay.”

“I felt weak. I felt like a kid again, you know.” He sat up suddenly. “I don’t want to talk about this. I’m gonna go.”

“Okay, that’s fine, we can shelve that bit for now. Let’s go back to Gerri, you can’t sleep.”

“No.”

“Have you spoken to her, apologised, explained?”

“She won’t let me.”

“Can you be friends?”

He smoothed his trousers down his legs, “Apparently not.”

“Do you think, I mean maybe you and she could reconcile, if this is important to you.”

Roman shrugged, “I’ve fucked that well and proper; she’s not coming back. Can’t stand to even be in the same room with me, whenever we’re in meetings together now she’s like ice queen.”

“Maybe she has her reasons.”

“I know, I know what they are too. I know her.”

“Would you want to go back, try again with her?”

He shrugged again, leaning forward. An odd sensation forming in his chest.

“If she said yes, if she offered?”

He was bent in half now, his chin on his knees, looking closely at the shit design on the rug his feet rested upon. “I’d fucking sell my soul for the chance.”

“Roman, we’ve spoken a lot over the past two years about your relationships with women, especially your sex life…”

“It always comes back to that doesn’t it, well I can tell you that was fine, fucking amazing actually.”

“I wasn’t going to ask that. I was going to suggest… in all the time we’ve talked about Grace and Tabitha and others, you never once showed this level of emotion. So my suggestion, my question is, do you think you might actually love this woman?”

He turned his head sideways, his cheek on his knee as he stared glassily at Sacher, and that odd sensation that had grown in his chest for weeks and weeks now, until it felt like some giant creature sapping all the air from his lungs, had reached breaking point. And for the first time in his life Roman Roy started to cry.


End file.
